Good morning! Today we’re going to look at two sedans from two different eras, both of which I’m pretty sure were driven by elderly owners. They come from opposite sides of the world, but the basic idea of both of them is the same.
Before we get into yesterday’s results, I just want to remind you all of something: Like those old 1-900 psychic hotlines, the information presented here is for entertainment purposes only. I’m not actually trying to give any car-buying advice. You get that, right? I’m not suggesting (well, kinda but not really) that anyone go buy a 9,000-mile Chevy Cavalier instead of a new Trax. I’m just showing you some cars I found for sale that I thought were interesting.
That said, if I had ten grand to spare, I’d fly out to Santa Barbara, road-trip that Dodge Daytona home, and spend the next ten years happily using it up. Maybe that’s just me, but maybe not. The blue Daytona won in a landslide.
My current daily driver is a 2013 Chrysler 300 that I inherited from my dad when he passed away. Before that, Dad had a 2006 300, and before that, a Mitsubishi Eclipse Spider. I remember giving him a hard time about trading in the Eclipse for an “old man car,” but after spending three and a half years behind the wheel of this newer 300, I get it. Comfy seats, a good stereo, and good strong air conditioning make the miles disappear in the rearview mirror in a very pleasant way. And it’s not even at 100,000 miles, so it should last me a good long while yet. You could do worse than to pick up a nice old sedan owned by an elderly driver. But how far back do you go? Let’s check out an old standby and a slightly newer choice, and you can decide.
1987 Pontiac 6000 – $3,950
Engine/drivetrain: 2.5-liter OHV inline 4, three-speed automatic, FWD
Location: Battle Creek, MI
Odometer reading: 137,000 miles
Operational status: Runs and drives well
General Motors has been doing the badge-engineering thing for a long time, but it reached its peak in the late 1970s and early ’80s. Fortune magazine called GM out on it in 1983, and the movie Fletch made a joke about it in 1985. This Pontiac 6000 would be nearly indistinguishable from a Chevy Celebrity, Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera, or Buick Century if not for its grille and badges. Despite that, GM sold a bazillion of these things over the years, and they turned out to be durable, reliable cars.
You’d never accuse one of being fun to drive, though, even though it’s from GM’s “Excitement Division.” This base-model 6000 is powered by our old friend the Iron Duke four-cylinder, which was renamed the Tech IV in 1982 when it gained throttle-body fuel injection. It’s noisy, and it isn’t much of a powerhouse, but if you keep fresh oil in it, it will keep cranking out its measly ninety horsepower until the end of time. It only comes with one transmission in the 6000, a three-speed automatic. This one runs and drives great and has had only two owners who both cared for it.
The interior is a little threadbare, but it doesn’t look abused. It has a gigantic aftermarket touchscreen where the radio should be, which I don’t much care for. I’d rather see the good old two-knob Delco stereo (which is included), and use a cassette adapter to bring it into the modern era. It has a strange assortment of options: cruise control, air conditioning (which works fine), and power locks, but manual crank windows. The old a la carte option days made for some weird specs.
I expect it has a small amount of rust somewhere, being a thirty-nine-year-old Michigan car, but for the most part it’s in remarkable shape outside. The paint is shiny, it has all the original hubcaps, and it isn’t missing any door trim like so many of these are. Oh, and whoever buys this car is required to nickname it “The Purple Duke.” I mean, what else could it be?
2000 Hyundai Sonata GLS – $4,300
Engine/drivetrain: 2.5-liter DOHC V6, four-speed automatic, FWD
Location: Sacramento, CA
Odometer reading: 78,000 miles
Operational status: Runs and drives well
Hyundai didn’t get off to a very auspicious start in the US. It began selling cars here in 1985, with the Excel subcompact, which sold like hotcakes but fell apart as soon as the warranty expired. The Excel was followed in 1989 by the Sonata, which also sold well by undercutting models like the Toyota Camry and Honda Accord on price. Both the Excel and the original Sonata were based on Mitsubishi designs, but by the time this Sonata was built, Hyundai was designing its own cars, and screwing them together a whole lot better.
Two engines were available in the Sonata: a Mitsubishi-designed Sirius four-cylinder or Hyundai’s own Delta V6. This being the upmarket GLS model, it has the V6, paired with a four-speed automatic. The seller is a dealer, I think, and we don’t get a whole lot of details about it, but they do say it runs and drives “very smooth.” That’s encouraging, but a pre-purchase inspection is a good idea.
It’s pretty fancy inside for a Hyundai, with (hopefully real) leather seats and (probably fake) wood trim. It’s in good condition, which you would hope with only 78,000 miles on it, but you know how some people treat their cars. The seller doesn’t give us much information here either, but they do say the air conditioning works, so that’s something.
I’m still not big on earth tones on cars, but if you have to do it, this is a good one. I’ve always liked this sort of greenish beige. Not that it’s a particularly stylish car, but it’s inoffensive. And it’s in great shape.
The older I get, the more I realize that “cool” cars are overrated. The trick is to find yourself something you think is cool, and then find something you don’t hate that does what you need it to. These both fall into that “something you don’t hate” category, but they will certainly do what you need them to. They’ve got comfy seats and air conditioning; what more could you want in a cheap daily driver? Which one would you pick?
I’ve experienced this particular level of excitement already, but not the dullness of this generation of Sonata, so that’s where my “money” would go.
I’ll have the newer, lower-mileage, safer, likely-cleaner-underneath option for only tree-fitty more. It appears that it might be due for a smog test, but I don’t live in California, so I don’t care.
I wish the Hyundai was also aubergine, though.
I first mistakenly thought you’d named it the Pontiac Purple Puke (alliterative!)
I will stick with that name because our family owned the badge differentiated Celebrity since new which was the worst car ever: whenever the tank was a quarter full the fuel pump would squeal starved of fuel and after 15k miles the whole front end would intermittently shake violently on the highway yet the worthless Chevrolet dealership could never find or even acknowledge the faults.
I also automatically thought of Purple Puke; it just fits so well due to the Iron Puke engine, ha ha
The Pontiac’s face looks depressive. Old man’s car don’t need to induce or conjure depression. Fuck depression.
The Sonata is ugly as fuck, but it’s a vastly better car.
For $350 more dollars and 59,000 fewer miles, I’ll sing a Sonata. There’s a lot more life left in that car.
The 6000, on the other hand, roamed the earth with the dinosaurs… the year I graduated from high school. In those days, a car with 100,000 miles was considered ready for the glue factory. Four decades and almost 40,000 miles past the odo rollover will not have improved it.
But, but…they added another barrel to the odometer to show that it’s a quality car, right?
/s
I am of the same era. I did not care for A-bodies then, but they’ve grown on me. It’s amazing that they’re basically the maligned “X-car”, but GM fixed a few things and made a car with cockroach qualities. The packaging is excellent! Such a roomy car in a compact footprint- GM really did great with that. I was raised in a very conservative area (and era) but a contemporary friend to this day marvels at the wide, flat floor of his Celebrity wagon, and how handy that was on various dates.
I also used to not like these cars, but I have warmed up to them more; once I learned how the engines are pertaining to the phrase: “GM cars will run (very) badly for longer than other cars will run at all”. More so on the 3800 type engines and similar vs. the Iron Puke, but still. Yeah, the X-bodies w/ that engine were way worse (one of THE worst cars). Although in high school I had a friend who painted his junky Citation to look like a cow!
Not to drag Cimarron into the discussion, not much left to say that hasn’t already been said. HOWEVER, I have always thought GM could have made a respectable A-body compact Cadillac. Give it that chiseled 80’s Cadillac sheet metal, a Buick 3800, and you could have had “traditional luxury” chrome-laden button-tufted velour seat variants (a step above the swankiest Buick Century), or a sporty “Euro” sports sedan (similar but above a Pontiac 6000 STE, which got AWD and a levelling suspension sometime in the late 80’s) with leather, minimal chrome, crisper handling, ABS, 4 wheel discs, and all the electronic and tech gizmos of the period. I know FWD had twist-beam rears, not sure about AWD variants, but maybe a IRS could have been feasible? Alas we’ll never know.
Oh yeah! I actually agree w/ you since a smaller Cadillac doesn’t necessarily have to=bad; all they had to do was make it as luxurious as possible and not pass it off to basically be the same as the way cheaper cars besides a few things to make it look fancy for way more $. Make it fit w/ their “Standard of the world” slogan back then where it’s like riding on a cloud, cruising in comfort and luxury, and having every new fancy feature available at the time (of course that would have cost a lot more, so it obviously didn’t work out). Maybe add 4WS, like on the awesome Preludes as an added feature; although the pros for that are negligible/miniscule- it was still a neat feature though.
Those Hondas were built so much better than most cars; used to have 2 of the 3rd gen Accords which the Prelude was based on…both 5spds and pop-ups! They were a blast to drive even if they were econobox dailies.
As far as Caddy’s go, I still prefer the humongous cars (maybe that contradicts my point about a smaller car, ha ha) I actually love most of the awesome land yachts from the malaise era and like the Chryslers/Lincolns a little better. I’ll take a 76 Chrysler New Yorker or Newport; or a 79 Lincoln Continental Mark V Bill Blass please!
I have an odd thing for the somewhat rare and sales disaster Chrysler R-bodies, and bustle-butt Imperials. It’s not Malaise, but I adore the 90-97 Town Car. Excellent transitional car that blends the old and the new.
Yeah, I kinda like the body styles on those since they were somewhat similar to some of the the previous gens; just downsized. Albeit not the same, but I had a friend in high school who had a 2nd gen Chrysler Cordoba from their J-body platform, and really liked that car; looked way better than the 1st gen! Yeah, I kinda like those Imperials too, and don’t mind the bustle butt too much. All the Imperials are pretty great, especially when they were their own make. Also, in high school my family had a neighbor who had one of that gen Town Car, which we ended up buying from him. I really liked that car and we enjoyed it. The funniest thing is the neighbor’s last name was Law…and he was actually a…lawyer! ha ha
Purple Duke! I’m glad someone is seeing the value in GM’s much-maligned post-malaise cars.
I would only buy this if I had enough disposable income to roll it off a bridge into a deep unpopulated ravine.
Preach!
I’m not sure about the 2.5 version but the Hyundai 2.7 V6 will run until the end of time. I can’t believe how many 1st gen Tucsons and Santa Fes I see running around even now.
I’m not sure I’d call the 6000 a good looking car when it first came out, but I can definitely say this composite headlight facelift is much worse. Jeez. Didn’t even know it got one.
Purple car, you say? Hell yeah.
I would prefer the Hyundai but both of these are are crack pot pricing. Xg300 or xg350 are real old man spec. I guess this one is old lady spec if an old man didn’t buy it.
https://www.craigslist.org/view/d/blue-point-2002-hyundai-xg350-one-oner/ixETUXDzxoZNxPubiwphop
Pontiac will last longer.
6000! Thank you for the entertainment; you really do amazing work w/ this column and yeah, it’s all just for fun!
I’m going w/ more interesting today since I don’t want that Hyundai. I love and miss Pontiac, but I used to think the 6000 and similar were total junk; they still are some…but I have warmed up to them a lot and there are way more things I like about them now. The Sonata is a boring econobox and will have a lot of problems since it’s from that era (oh wait, all Hyundai’s/Kia’s suck; even newer ones, ha ha…Hondas have always been a million times better) while the 6000 w/ run very badly longer than other cars will run at all.
The Iron Puke was bad (Chevy Citation!) but I’ll keep it running for a long while, cheaply. It’s a basic car and simple to fix. I’d swap out that big screen for my JVC single DIN CD player/stereo…I also have good speakers to install. If I hang onto it long enough, maybe I’ll swap the drivetrain for a manual just for fun! (and a 3800 engine?) Too bad it’s not the LE so it can be a “GOOOLE” edition.
“So, what do you drive?”
“Oh, a Pontiac GOOOOOOOOOOOOLE!”
Maybe I’ll paint it tan so it can be similar to a “tan Ciera! tan Ciera!”
“Yeah, but that TruCoat!”
I’ll take the Pontiac with the Iron Duke. When I drive by, my neighbors will think their mail is being delivered.
Not a fan of that generation of Sonata’s styling, but that Pontiac sounds like Novocain on wheels. It too needs a V6 under the hood.
I once read about a Sonata being clocked at 153 mph by a photo speed trap camera. The guy’s defense was “there’s no way this car could go that fast”.
Not sure how all of that turned out, but still, the GM is the lesser of the two evils offered up here.
I remember that as well photo speed trap article as well. It was in a 2006 – 2010 variant, which were equipped with the 3.3L V6, allegedly able to top out in the upper 140mph range. That might be the best looking Hyundai ever designed. This era, on the other hand is possibly the ugliest, which says a lot for a Hyundai.
I had to pick the Pontiac.
The first gen Tiburon would like to enter the chat…
I did 210 kph in my Dad’s once.
While the Pontiac has a reliable powertrain combo, it sucks in every other way. And I say that as someone who has driven a Pontiac 6000 with that same Iron Puke engine.
I’ll take the Sonata… it’s likely to be just as reliable and also be a better car in every way.